Off-duty officer in South Korea saves woman from phone scam

An off-duty South Korean police officer prevented a voice phishing scam following a random encounter with the victim in public, according to a local press report. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

April 9 (UPI) -- An elderly South Korean woman was spared of a fraudulent scheme involving her life savings, following a spur-of-the-moment encounter with a local off-duty police officer, according to a local press report.

South Korean television network MBC reported Thursday the officer met the woman by chance on the streets of Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, as she may have been preparing to hand over a large sum of money, about $25,000 in total, to a stranger on the phone.

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The senior citizen had just left a local bank after withdrawing her savings and had placed the money in a bag. The scene, captured on surveillance footage, shows the woman speaking to someone on her mobile phone outside the bank's entrance.

The officer, Jeong Myeong-woo, was walking by the bank at the time, when he turned around and identified himself as police. Jeong may have found the voice on the other end of the line suspect: a young man's voice, placed on speakerphone.

According to MBC, scammers claimed her son had been kidnapped because he had not paid his debts. The voice on the call also reportedly said harm would come to her son if she did not hand over the money.

Voice phishing scams may have increased in the wake of the global health crisis in Korea.

Television network JTBC reported Thursday scammers are targeting vulnerable small businesses with false offers of government loans at low interest rates.